Chicks Offer Insight Into Origin of Flight

The behavior of chukar partridge chicks, which can run straight up the side of a hay bale or a tree while flapping their wings, may offer a new window on the origin of flight in birds.

Feathered dinosaurs may have done something similar, Dr. Kenneth P. Dial of the University of Montana suggests in today's issue of Science. He suggests that they too flapped their primitive wings to help them climb, which brought them off the ground and closer to discovering the aerial possibilities of their wings. Even incompletely feathered proto-wings, Dr. Dial says, would have been useful in running up inclines.
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